Driving the Thames House pool car, Ruth followed Harry through the early evening traffic to a small pub near his house.

"I used to eat here several times a week," he said, when he brought a single malt for himself and a white wine for her to their table against the wall, where the noise from the bar was muffled by distance and the bodies of numerous other patrons. They sat across from one another on padded bench seats, gazing across at the other and then looking away, each hyper-aware of the close presence of the other.

"Why don't you still?" Ruth asked, her eyes on the drink in front of her, but occasionally nervously flicking up to meet his own.

"I'm usually too tired, and it's often late when I get home. I either pick up something on the way home or I cook sausages and eggs for myself at home."

To most people Harry's life would sound difficult and stressful, long days followed by evenings spent alone. For the first time Ruth was prepared to consider that were she and Harry to share their lives, the companionship alone which they shared would take the edge off the long days, and their nights would never again be lonely.

"Have you decided what you want to eat?" Harry said after a few minutes of blatantly watching Ruth sip her wine while she avoided eye contact with him.

"Just some soup, I think, with crusty bread."

"They have pea and ham soup or pea and ham soup."

"Pea and ham sounds fine, Harry."

Harry again left the table to place their food order, and Ruth was reminded again how much like a couple they felt. They fitted together like one's favourite pair of old shoes, too well made and too comfortable to throw away; too much time spent in one another's company, too many memories, and too much love between them, waiting for just the right time to be openly expressed.

When he returned from placing their food order Ruth reached her hand across the table and Harry took it, smiling into her eyes. "This is nice," he said, squeezing her fingers between his as he grasped her hand more tightly.

"I don't want to go home tonight," Ruth said.

"Then don't. You know how much I want you to stay with me."

She did of course, but she needed to sleep. "I have to face Erin tomorrow. I've put in a report about a weapons group in Brixton. I believe that there's a Russian connection, and that the Russian trade meeting is in some way just a smoke screen. The trade talks are little more than a ruse to lull us into trusting them." Harry's silence, combined with the increased pressure of his fingers around hers told Ruth that she had hit a nerve. "Tell me about the Russians, Harry. I know that you and these people share a history."

At just that moment their soup was delivered to their table, and so they ate in silence, each buried in their own thoughts. Once they'd finished eating, Harry continued their conversation, deftly avoiding Ruth's question about the Russians.

"You haven't asked about my police interview, Ruth."

"I've been waiting for you to offer the information."

He smiled at that, relaxing a little. "It was fairly predictable. I get the sense that the police love it when a member of the security service comes in for questioning. They threw all the usual interrogation techniques at me and I … threw a few of my own right back. After around an hour they agreed that there was no reason to hold me. I suggested to them that the person they were looking for was at least ten years older than me, and had a name which sounded similar to my own. Again they agreed. In fact, they were so .. casual about letting me go that I suspect they know all about the group who took children from children's homes, and they are marking time, waiting until they have sufficient evidence." Harry reached across and took Ruth's hand in both of his. He looked intently at her hand. "Do you know, Ruth … there's something about all this which bothers me a lot, and I need to say this." He squeezed Ruth's hand as he struggled to express himself. "You know how much I appreciate what you've done, how you've stood beside me ..."

"I've only done what you would have done for me, Harry. I never considered leaving you to deal with it alone."

"But that's the thing, you see. Do you know what I'm saying?" Ruth shook her head, completely lost. "I can look after myself. I have the resources of the security service behind me, but that girl – Melanie – who is it has been looking after her?"

"Jeremy was hiding her in his flat. It appears she left of her own accord."

"Ruth, you're not listening." He took one of his hands from hers, but still grasped her hand tightly with his other hand. "Jerry was looking after her so that she could help him with his story. In a way he was no different than those men who abused her."

"Now hang on -"

"Ruth, hear me out. The answers to this whole thing are with her."

"I agree."

"So who else knows that? Who knows that she knows the names of some rich and powerful people?"

"Jerry knows."

"He's just an opportunist."

"Harry, I think he was attempting to tell her story in order to empower her, to give her a voice. People like Melanie – who have endured terrible things as children – need someone to listen to them and to believe them."

Harry dropped his head and sighed heavily. When he lifted his head Ruth noticed how tired he looked. "I know, but I also think there's something else that Jerry knows, perhaps without knowing he knows."

Ruth shook her head, smiling. "We're tired, Harry. Perhaps we should go home."

"Together?" He thought it worth a try.

"For a while. I'd love a cup of sweet tea, and then I must head home. I need sleep."

"You can sleep in my bed, with me."

For a brief moment Ruth was tempted. She watched him from across the table, noting how drained he seemed. "We both need a proper sleep, an uninterrupted sleep."

Harry stood, stretching his back as he did so. "Then let's go back to mine for that cup of tea," he said, reaching out his hand to her.

Again they sat across from one another at the end of Harry's kitchen table. It was already familiar to Ruth, and she enjoyed how comfortable she felt in Harry's company, and in his house. It's just that she had a need to mention a few things.

"I had lunch with Towers today," she began.

"You did? Why didn't you mention that while we were at the pub?"

"I .. didn't want to spoil the calm, Harry. Towers told me the truth about Albany."

Harry's eyes darted up to meet hers. "He had no right to do that."

"I know. That's what I thought. He said something like now I know that your act of saving me was no longer such a noble gesture."

Harry twisted his lips in a gesture of disgust. "He clearly has no idea how powerful the deterrent factor is with a weapon of that potential, operational or not."

"Perhaps. He's merely a politician, Harry. All he really understands are budgets and polling figures." Harry smiled and fiddled with the handle of his tea cup. "When were you going to tell me?"

"I always meant to, but -" he took a deep breath, "there was always something else more important to discuss."

"Like the Russians."

"Yes. Them."

Ruth waited a full minute before pursuing the subject, if only to take Harry's mind off the reason for his current suspension. "What is it about the Russian contingent in London? Why did you turn down the request for Section D to provide security for the talks?"

Harry glanced quickly at Ruth, and then looked down at his tea. He knew he'd have to tell Ruth the story of the Gavriks one day soon. He just hadn't wanted it to be now. He longed to put the whole sorry saga behind him. He sat back in his chair and sighed heavily. "Putting it succinctly," he said, "I met both Elena and Ilya Gavrik in Germany in the late 1970's, and she and I began an affair. She gave birth to a child which she claimed was mine. I thought I'd successfully turned her, so I planned bringing her and the boy back to London with me, but I left her waiting for me to turn up. It was far too risky, and besides, I was married at the time. I don't wish to see them because I don't want to be revisiting a time in my life when I made a number of decisions of which I am not at all proud. I am no longer the man who did that."

Ruth was not altogether surprised at Harry's revelation. She had thought it would be something like that, but she'd expected there to have been a pistols-at-dawn scenario, rather than a child who'd been conceived as a result of the affair. "Is her son yours?"

"I don't know, Ruth. I don't think he could be. I was careful to always use … protection. It's possible she used her son to manipulate me. Elena was a spy, and a very good one. I hadn't thought about her for years. I don't wish to re-enter that time in my life. History like that needs to stay in the past where it belongs."

Harry sounded weary and drained. It had already been quite a day, and there she was interrogating him over something which had happened over thirty years ago. "Thank you for telling me," she said quietly, avoiding eye contact. "I didn't mean to put pressure on you. I just wanted to know what it was behind your decision to not engage with the Russian delegation. Towers says that the Foreign Secretary is rather unhappy about your decision."

Again Harry sighed wearily, this time running the palm of one hand down over his face. Ruth reached out to grasp that hand between both her own, and he held onto her hand tightly. "I don't mind telling you, Ruth. I'm tired of all this."

"Tired of what exactly?"

"The service, spying, secrets, back stabbing, the politics behind it all. It's nothing more than a game where those who pull the strings remain at a distance. Where once I enjoyed it, reveled in it, I now find it terribly exhausting."

"Perhaps today has been … harder than most, and you've not had work in which to bury yourself, distance yourself."

"I don't think it's that, Ruth. I'm getting on in age, and for a while now I've found my job difficult at times."

"But you do it so well."

"The decisions I'm having to make on almost a daily basis are not black and white."

"But Harry, you don't have to make those decisions alone."

"When John Bateman took you I was on my own. How could I consult anyone else when making that decision?"

Harry took his hand from between Ruth's hands and again passed it down his face. Poor tired Harry. Ruth wanted to curl up with him in his own bed and spend the night, but she'd already decided she had best go home. The next day was likely to be busy for her, and potentially quite difficult. "I'll leave now," she said quietly, forgetting the earlier promise she'd made to stay. "It's best I go."

"You don't have to," Harry said quietly, hopefully.

"I think I should." Ruth had been confronted by the story of Harry and Elena Gavrik, and she needed to put distance between them. She needed to think.

Ruth stood and gathered her bag and her coat, and since she'd parked the pool car in the lane behind the house, she headed through the kitchen to the back door. Harry stood to accompany her. "Ruth .. why is it I get the impression that you don't want to be happy, and that perhaps you're not expecting you can be happy .. especially with me?"

Ruth looked up at him and shook her head, Sometimes Harry said the strangest things. Not want to be happy? Who in their right mind didn't want to be happy?

"Don't come outside," she said quickly, not wanting to address his question. "It's cold, and you'll catch your death. Whatever happened to spring?" She gave a little laugh, and then reached up to kiss him on the mouth. His response was rather cold, as he pursed his lips so that the kiss was as chaste as when one kisses a relative. "What's wrong?" she asked, frowning up at him.

Harry shook his head and opened the back door for her. "Please drive carefully," he said, "and ring me tomorrow, otherwise I'll be ringing you every five minutes while you're meant to be working."

Ruth smiled up at him, and then kissed his cheek, and then she was gone. Harry watched as she ducked through the gate into Bob's back yard, and then he closed the door and sighed. Sometimes he didn't understand Ruth at all. He could only surmise that she had not responded well to what he had told her about his affair with Elena Gavrik. He knew Ruth. She'd rally. All they both needed was a decent night's sleep.